Intel won't upgrade to Vista until SP1

Summary:Intel CEO Paul Otellini said the chip giant isn't going to upgrade to Vista until it gets the first service pack from Microsoft. Speaking at the Bank of America Technology conference in San Francisco, Otellini was asked about his take on Vista and whether it could drive demand.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini said the chip giant isn't going to upgrade to Vista until it gets the first service pack from Microsoft.

Speaking at the Bank of America Technology conference in San Francisco, Otellini was asked about his take on Vista and whether it could drive demand.

For corporations, Otellini said Vista upgrades will be slow. "I know of no organization doing an upgrade before SP1," said Otellini. "Intel isn't upgrading either (until SP1)."

Otellini, however, noted corporate uptake won't hurt Microsoft because most enterprises have commercial licenses that are "all you can drink."

On the consumer side, Otellini said "Vista will play out like XP did. There's not a large demand for backward looking upgrades." Over time, demand will pick up because because "consumers will like Vista as they play with it." Otellini added that Vista is "closer to the Mac than we've been on the Windows side for a long time."

On other topics:

Market share: "I've always been a market share guy. Having market share is critical to advance in multiple markets and lower costs," said Otellini. Intel's goal is to stay within its 10 year trend line for market share. In the last 10 year's Intel's lowest market share was 72 percent and its highest was 86 percent. "Staying in that range is modus operandi," said Otellini. AMD issued a sales warning today.

Global capacity: "There's clearly more capacity to build microprocessors in 07 and 08," he said.

Pricing: "Pricing continues to be very competitive," said Otellini. But Intel can "show differentiation through the platform." For instance he noted that "VPro insulates us from commoditization of the desktop."

Linux vs. Windows: "It's still a Windows world out there. Where I see Linux gaining is in ultra mobile devices. The Linux footprint is quite good for power," he said. Otellini added that Intel was nudging Microsoft to optimize its Windows kernel to save power.

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CN...
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